


La Douleur Exquise

by aftershocks



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: 00Q - Freeform, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 09:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aftershocks/pseuds/aftershocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In French, there is a phrase: La Douleur Exquise, which expresses the complex idea of the heart wrenching pain of wanting someone you can't have.</p><p>This work is now complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In French, there is a phrase: La Douleur Exquise, which expresses the complex idea of the heart wrenching pain of wanting someone you can't have. Q knew this because of nearly six years of French lessons pressed upon him by an elderly aunt, in love with the continent and afraid of computers, who was determined to see him a distinguished member of high society.  
He was not certain that ‘distinguished member of M16’ was entirely the same thing.  
Q had learned and forgotten the phrase, along with the conjugations of verbs that he didn’t even use in English, so it came as somewhat of a surprise when floated across his mind as he started in on the fourth martini of the afternoon. Q set the drink down in favor of tasting French on his tongue for the first time in several years. The language in itself was heady and foreign, but the words… he shook his head and returned to his drink.  
Moneypenny that afternoon had used the word “pining” (and wasn’t English crass, compared to the peaks and hills of French or the little lilts of Russian or Farsi) to describe—and before she had hit the descriptors, because she started right in with “pining. That’s what it is,” he held his breath—a certain large, blond asshole. Q supposed that this was the source of the French. It was ridiculous, of course, to assume Bond even capable of pining, much less something as rich as La Douleur Exquise. As far as anyone knew, Bond had never had to pine. There was a betting pool to prove this—money down on one night into a mission, two, a week to bed a new girl. Q tended to put his money down on one night. As it happened, he managed to supplement his income by a few hundred pounds a month in doing so.  
Anyway he had not stayed long enough to hear her explanation for even thinking such a thing about James Bond, at risk of hearing about yet another girl, instead excusing himself for trip to the bathroom that turned into a trip out a back door, up to the streets, and into a nearby pub where he got a dirty look for ordering something with vodka in it.  
Bloody fucking vodka martini. Life was a hell of a lot easier when he drank wine.  
Whoever this latest conquest was, and for all he knew it was Moneypenny herself, would eventually be screwed and dismissed. That, if nothing else, was a little glimmer of beauty amongst the rough of James Bond; he was predictable.  
Q took a long pull from his drink and checked his watch. He figured he had five more minutes before someone came looking. Now was the time to partake of the sketchy bowl of nuts on the counter if he was ever going to. Maybe get some salt on one of the keyboards back at Q Branch. Use the happy buzz that came with four martinis to do something subtly destructive, because that very well matched the mood he was in. He waved the bartender over.  
The man was large and red and scruffy. “I’m not giving you any more to drink.”  
“That’s—“ Q fixed him with a glare, the severity of which was dampened by the hiccup that escaped him. “First of all, it’s rude to cut a man off. Secondly, and more importantly, I want nuts, not any more of this Russian bullshit.”  
“What would Mummy think of your cursing, Q?”  
And there, standing directly behind him, was Douleur bloody Exquise personified. It was much easier to hate him in theory.  
“Not funny, Bond.”  
He turned in time to see Bond smirk, which sent very confusing messages to his drink-addled brain. “The comment on your age or your mummy, Q?”  
Q opened his mouth, snapped it shut again, spun back around, and gestured to his glass. Or, rather, to the empty space where his glass had been.  
“This,” said James Bond, shaken not stirred, bastard of the century, “is my drink.”  
There was no good response to this, so Q decided to ignore it in favor of tracing frowny faces into the wood of the bar with his finger.  
“You don’t drink vodka.”  
Oh, good. He could work with this. “How do you know?”  
“Moneypenny. You drink red wine. Champagne, if you’re in a good mood, lager if you’re unhappy. And this isn’t lager.”  
Q was a bit too busy being blown away by this sudden glut of information regarding his drinking habits to process that Bond knew, somehow, that he was unhappy. He was about to say something in the vein of ‘what the hell,’ but he was cut off.  
“You don’t drink vodka, Q, and yet here you are at 2 in the afternoon drinking my martini. My martini which features, most notably, vodka. I want to know why.”  
“It’s not your bloody martini!” The pub fell silent. Q realised that he had shouted and clamped his mouth shut. Bond stared at him, an eyebrow quirked. It was only the mercy of the bartender that prevented Q from sitting there for the remainder of the day, red up to his ears and clutching the edge of the bar hard enough to drain the colour out of his knuckles.  
“One of you needs to pick up the tab. And then get. Out.”  
After a few more moments of silence, Bond tossed a tenner on the table, slid an arm around Q, and dragged him to his feet. “I am not a child,” he said. “And I do not need to be assisted across the street. I am perfectly—” he wrenched out of Bond’s grip and fell forward. But where he expected to feel the floor, he felt instead a pair of warm arms wrapped around his chest, and then a solid wall of flesh at his back, and then, oh God oh Christ oh bugger, warm breath against his ear. The little shard of pain that had worked its way into his chest when Moneypenny mentioned 007 made itself known again by sliding closer to his core. Exquisite, indeed.  
“You’re drunk.”  
Q shivered.  
“I cannot,” continued Bond, his breath tickling Q’s neck, “allow you to go back to work in good conscience. If nothing else, you will destroy the equipment.”  
“I could operate a computer better than you if I was high on ecstasy, Bond, I hardly think—”  
“So I am putting you in a cab, and later, I am forcing your address out of Moneypenny and insuring that you have not choked on your own vomit. Are we clear?”  
“Furthermore, unless I was allowed at the hard drive with a hammer, and I can’t even begin to tell you how cathartic that—wait what?”  
They were outside and Q did not remember that happening. Bond hailed a cab.  
“Expect me at 5, Q. And do try not to die; I’m not sure I could find it in my heart to forgive you.”  
It was only when Bond’s arms were absent from his chest and he was sitting cold in the back of the taxi that Q realised that they had been there the whole time.


	2. Chapter 2

Five o’clock came and went with a ghost of fingers on his forehead and a quiet chuckle. It was not, Q was sure, that he could not handle so many martinis. He had attended parties before, and while the memories were fuzzy, he was almost certain it took more than four measures of vodka, two of lillet blanc, and twelve of Gordon’s to send him over the edge. On the other hand, twelve measures of Gordon’s in less than an hour sounded like a hell of a lot when he rolled out of bed at 7am, and if the pounding that had settled between his eyes was any indication, 95% alcohol hadn’t agreed with him well at all.

He stumbled to the kitchen and for the first time in nearly a year brewed himself a cup of coffee. There was no toast, no eggs, no tomato juice and no vodka, so he settled for the coffee and a stack of digestive biscuits.

He was halfway through the third one when it occurred to him that he had not fallen asleep under the covers the night before, and yet, when he woke up...  
The cup of coffee crashed to the floor.

Ten minutes and a long string of curses in Farsi later, Q sat on the floor, cradling a bloody hand and his final digestive biscuit. The remains of his second favorite mug sat in a corner, disconsolate, and the coffee soaked into his pyjama pants, which he at least remembered putting on. Somewhere in the flat, his phone rang.

Q bit into his biscuit. The nausea worsened.

Bugger work and bugger vodka martinis and bugger James Bond, the bloody prat, for tucking him in like a child, because there was no other explanation and because 5pm was fuzzy anyway, lost in a curl of lemon peel and a splash of turpentine hell. 

Q wondered how hard he could punch a field agent in the face without getting suspended.

The phone rang.

It did not stop ringing for the next three minutes until Q picked it up and barked his revenge at the universe into the mouthpiece. “This had better be good.”

There was a long pause in which Q considered how well his job had payed. 

“You’re late.” By some miracle, it was Moneypenny. Not M. Not one of the little snot-nosed idiots in Q-Branch who would forget code strings in Java just as soon as they’d forget how to order a decent drink. It was a relief of such magnitude that he was even having a hard time hating her. 

“Yes,” he said.

“M will have your head.”

As much as he wanted to explain to her about La Douleur Exquise and too much to drink and a duvet snuggled unexpectedly under his chin, he really just everyone to fuck off so he could curl up and sleep. If he never woke up again, well then, that was a risk he would take.

She wasn’t done. “I only held off this long because I’m told you have the hangover of the century and I know you don’t drink enough to get hungover. Nor is it vodka most of the time, so we’ll be talking about--”

“How the ever living fuck did you know that?” Amongst Q’s more charming qualities was a proficiency with cuss words that far exceeded anyone’s expectations.

“About the vodka?”

Q scoffed. Moneypenny was not a friend, per say, not in the traditional sense that included speaking cordially to one another and treating each other like human beings, but she had taken the time to learn him and to measure him, and for that there was something between them, a kind of acceptance of faults and anger and mild sociopathy that made life as a secret agent for the British government a little less like one huge fucking classified file.

“Bond told me.”

Q hung up.

Never had he gotten to work so efficiently, dressed in ten minutes in another jumper, or maybe it was the same one from the night before, and out the door. He called a car because the alternative was the tube and the adrenalin coursing through his veins would not allow him to sit safely amongst fragile people.

Bond was not in yet, not anywhere, and so he occupied himself quietly in tinkering with a Walther that was almost beyond repair. If there was one thing in his whole life that he was good at, it was waiting, a quiet and gentle tap on a keyboard as the world exploded, two nights in a hospital as it came crashing down, or an hour refining weaponry as James Bond shagged some woman senseless in her flat three miles away. It was a guess, of course. James Bond could be taking pills. He could be drinking. He could be half-dead in some prison cell in Ghana, and that thought sent his heart racing fast enough that he booted up the system and...

And shut it down. His hands went back to the gun. At 2pm, James Bond sauntered into Q-Branch with one more broken PPK, this one with the trigger guard missing, and tossed it onto the table in front of Q. Q was thrown by his face. Not by the cheekbones, disarming once but now just an itch at the back of his head, and not by the fine growth of stubble that he desperately wanted to shave off as slowly as humanly possible, but by the long gash above one eye.

He took a moment to stare at it before he lifted the gun, and, without comment, tucked it into a drawer.

“No threats?”

Q pressed his lips into a thin line. The adrenaline had gone out of him, and he anger, replaced by a throbbing headache and a twitch at the corner of the mouth.

“I don’t suppose the radio survived this time? Or did you take one? I wouldn’t know, seeing as I wasn’t here when you took my gun.”

Bond smirked. “One of your assistants--”

“Will be getting a very serious talking-to about internal security. The radio?”

“It had a disagreement with the Thames. How’s your head?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bond glanced around. A second before he stepped closer, around the table, he caught Q’s eye and any chance there had been of maintaining a calm, cold, demeanor flashed away. Q wondered if 007 knew how warm his breath was or that it was scented with scotch.

“I was a bit concerned that Aspirin might be beyond a man who was struggling with pyjamas less than twelve hours ago, to be quite honest. And Moneypenny tells me she called this morning and--”

“You two gossip like teenagers.”

“You would know.”

Q took a step back and straightened his cardigan. “Did you need something else, Bond?”

Bond’s fingers dipped into the pocket of his suit jacket and lingered; he frowned at Q. The fingers dropped away. “No.”

Q nodded to the door.

Bond was halfway across the room when Q stopped him with a clipped, “Bond.” The man turned and for a moment Q reveled in this great power to make James Bond stop walking for all of two seconds. He gestured at Bond’s forehead. “Go to medical.”

He watched as Bond smirked and strode out of the room. The second the door closed behind him, Q picked up his phone and pressed 1, or, as it had been re-labeled in incredibly minute sharpy lettering one (slightly-drunk) night several months before, “Eve <3.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back after a two year hiatus. Whoo?

“We’re not friends,” he reiterated over his hot chocolate. Eve grinned at him and slid the whipped cream across the counter.  
“No. But, as you say, there’s only one girl in this city who gets into his pockets on a regular basis--”  
“If you say it that way again I will test the newest--”  
“--and you, my precious little lovesick--”  
“Fuck you.”  
“--killer, need to see what’s in them. Have you considered that he carries a handkerchief?”  
Q glared at her and drew a lewd picture in whipped cream on her counter. She sighed.  
“People blow their noses, Q, it’s a biological function.”  
Somehow the 2pm emergency call to Moneypenny had turned into 9pm hot chocolate at her flat. He had begged something stronger and gotten a whack over the head for his trouble; tomorrow, she reminded him, was Thursday, and if he showed up with another hangover the first thing on her agenda would be finding Bond and detailing for him the circumstances of Q’s headache. In a mature and completely mutual decision, they had settled on cocoa.  
“We’ve discussed this. It looked like he was going for something, and then he changed his mind.”  
“Maybe he didn’t need to blow his nose after all.”  
“You’re really not making me feel better.”  
“Not my job.”  
Q slid off of his stool and curled up on the floor under the lip of the breakfast bar. This was far outside of decorum and control and was therefore not acceptable, but he was struggling with the whole caring thing. He glanced up as he felt another body settle down on the floor next to him.  
“I could punch him for you.”  
“I thought we agreed we’re not friends?”  
“Oh, we’re not, I just want to see the look on his face. I missed it when I shot him. Pity, really.”  
Q chuckled.  
“I wasn’t kidding,” she said after a minute. “He’s... something’s up and it sure as hell looks like love.”  
“It’s not love.”  
She reached over and took the empty mug from his hands and replaced it with her own half-full one. “We have an entire file which details the Vesper case, Q. He’s capable of it.”  
“Which is a pretty thing to think and I’m very happy for whomever is now at the receiving end of his affection, but I’m also on your kitchen floor drinking hot chocolate while he buggers her and it’s just really not conducive to anything at all.”  
They sat in a silence that was not companionable but pitying. Q wanted to shout at himself, wanted to get up from the floor and smile and laugh it off and call James Bond any number of less-than-charitable things and then leave so that Eve would stop looking at him like that. The problem was in the willingness of his legs to go along with this plan.  
Eve opened her mouth and shut it again. The silence stretched onwards and Q drank his tepid cocoa.  
“You said I was lovesick.”  
She glanced sideways and raised an eyebrow.  
“One does not get lovesick for one’s agents. I would prefer you not call me that again.” Q picked himself up from the floor, reached down, scooped the empty mug from her hands, and then crossed the room to deposit both cups in the sink. “Besides,” he said, “he’s a complete prat. I’ll just shag his brains out and be done with it.”  
“You don’t act like yourself around him.”  
“No, but nor does anyone else, so I’m sure it doesn’t bother him.”  
“Q…”  
“Thank you for the cocoa, Moneypenny. I’ll let myself out.”  
Q left before she could stop him, before she could see the tears pinching at his eyes.  
He was well and truly fucked.

There was no hangover to hide behind in the morning. Q arrived at work early, his face washed, his hair brushed, his tie pulled tight enough to strangle a lesser man. He tinkered with the mainframe, stepping away from the computer occasionally to nibble at a blueberry muffin. At 9, Moneypenny came down to drop off a file, and gave Q a sad smile. He took the smile silently and ignored the implicit offer for another heart-to-heart.  
Bond crashed into Q branch half an hour later. He stopped to flirt with one of Q’s cronies, brushing the side of her face with a single finger; how the hell he’d gone this long without being sued sexaul harrasment confused them all. The girl giggled and the sliver of pain made itself known again. Q sent a mouthful of muffin to crush it and then distracted from the internal war with several more lines of code.  
He felt breath on his ear. His training kicked in and he spun, moving to press a gun to his assailant’s head. Bond caught his wrist before he could complete the movement and twisted; the gun clattered to the floor.  
“That’s not very friendly,” he said.  
Q fought to get his wrist free, but Bond just held on harder, squeezed until it hurt. Finally, Q let his wrist go limp, and glared at Bond. “Let go.”  
“I need something.”  
“Well, Bond, perhaps if you _let go_ , I will consider finding whatever it is you need instead of shooting you.”  
“Your gun is on the floor.”  
With his free hand, Q wrenched open the drawer behind him and pulled out another gun. Ever since the incident with Silva, he had kept at least two handheld weapons readily available at all times and practiced with both hands.  
He was aware of many sets of eyes on him as he held the gun to Bond’s head. The room was silent and tense, and then the unthinkable happened.  
James Bond laughed.  
“You won’t shoot me.”  
Q clicked the safety off. “Try me.”  
Bond took a step closer. Q could feel the heat radiating off of him, could swear he knew, in that moment, the sound of the other man’s heartbeat. He channeled the nervous energy crawling up his back into pressing the gun into Bond’s temple.  
“I need a favor.” The words fell out of Bond’s lips soft and dripping with honey, meant only for the two of them. Q shivered, but managed to keep the tremor out of his gun hand. “Put the gun down, boy, you’re attracting attention.”  
Q put the safety back on, dropped the gun, and punched Bond in the face.  
The sharp crack was almost as satisfying as the blood. Bond’s nose gushed like an uncapped fire hydrant. Q didn’t even regret the ruined cardigan and shoes. What’s several hundred quid when the bastard who has ruined your life is doomed to a swollen face and two black eyes?  
Bond twisted Q’s arm _hard_. Q turned with the motion and found himself with his back pressed to Bond’s chest. Oh.  
Bond addressed the room at large. “Return to your work.” The members of Q branch did as they were told. It was widely acknowledged that Q, while a genius, was a complete idiot. Many of his people still had their self-preservation instincts intact, despite Q’s best efforts, and they were backstabbing power-mongers; they would let Q die horribly before they lifted a finger to stop Bond.  
Blood dripped onto Q’s head. “You have no idea how long it takes to style my hair like this,” he hissed. Bond chuckled and let him go. Q shook out his wrist but did not step away. “What do you want?”  
Bond set his chin on Q’s shoulder. Q froze.  
“I need you to hack into Moneypenny’s email for me,” said Bond quietly. His lips were centimeters away from Q’s ear, and it took all of Q’s willpower not to lean into them. “Get me everything.”  
By the time the haze cleared from Q’s brain, Bond was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Before he logged into Eve’s email, Q took several deep breaths to quiet the infuriated beast at the base of his spinal column. He didn’t have to hack or even run password-generation software, because Eve kept all of her passwords in the lock box underneath her desk at home, which Q, ever data-minded, had broken into the first time he spent the night.  
His first priority was finding all of the conversations they had ever had concerning Bond. Email was by no means a secure medium, but Q encoded all his communications so heavily that it didn’t matter. Besides, the subject of these emails was hardly a technological genius, as evidenced by Q’s current task.  
Q deleted the damning emails, saved the others to a flash drive, and left Eve an apology note under his name in her contact list. The thought of seeing Bond again sent the blood pounding in his chest and head and raised the hairs on his arms, so he sent one of his lackeys with the flash drive.  
Eve was back in Q Branch five minutes later. She had coffee. Q braced himself for more pain, but rather than throwing the coffee in his face, Eve handed it to him and guided him out of the room by his elbow. In the hallway, she sat him down and squatted beside him.  
“You broke his nose,” she said. She brushed a lock of hair off Q’s face; her fingers came away stained red.  
Q nodded mutely. The adrenalin had finally settled, and now exhaustion was finding a home in his bones. What had felt in the moment like power now felt like pettiness.  
“He must think me a child.”  
“Probably,” said Eve. Q looked up at her. “But he also thinks you’re very brave. Stupid, but brave.” She cocked her head to the side. “He actually sounded very impressed when he told the story.”  
Q groaned. “Who did he tell?”  
“M, the medics, me. He’s playing it close to the chest.”  
“Why?”  
“Well, it doesn’t look very good that his Quartermaster managed to pull a gun on him twice in as many minutes, does it?”  
“I’m highly trained.”  
“You’re a desk agent.”  
Q grunted and sipped the coffee. Among Eve’s frightening abilities was the power to accurately determine how one took their coffee or tea simply by looking at them. Q took both strong, milky, and so sweet it made his teeth ache. Eve had never brought it to him any other way. When he took the cup from his mouth, a sticky residue clung to his upper lip. Eve tsked and wiped it off with the handkerchief she kept tucked into her blouse for exactly this purpose.  
“So. Find anything interesting in my email?”  
“You can enlarge your penis for five easy payments of 70 pounds.”  
“Wonderful.”  
“I deleted anything… pertinent.”  
“Including my nudes?” Q’s eyes widened, and a reprimand danced on his tongue. “Kidding,” said Eve, before he could speak. “Any idea why he’d want my emails? Other than the fact that I lead a mysterious and fascinating life.”  
“I don’t know if I’d say that. You’ve had Golden Syrup Weetabix for breakfast everyday for the past three years.”  
She glared at him. “Q.”  
The lion that had been sleeping in Q’s belly yawned, stretched, and began to knead his innards, claws out. He dropped his head to his knees.  
“He likes you,” he muttered.  
“What?”  
Q’s head snapped up. The lion roared, and the sound reverberated into his voice. “The pining is for you! And I wish you the best of luck, I really do. I will watch and listen, as I always do, and smile, and take his broken Walther and my crushed heart in hand and return them to the desk drawer and stand stoic in my cardigan, and when he forgets you I will dry your tears and remove your false tooth so that you cannot die for him.” He was mortified to realize that there were tears running down his face, and wiped at them with the back of his hand.  
Moneypenny was silent for a moment in which Q felt his heart rise up in his throat, ready, it seemed, to abandon ship. He was sure she would get up and find Bond, drag him into a broom cupboard and consummate their twisted love. Q sat back in the familiar arms of his _Douleur Exquise_ , mourning already, and waited.  
“Don’t be a moron.”  
Q’s mouth fell open.  
“He doesn’t love me. He wants to sleep with me, but he wants to sleep with the entirety of Europe and Asia. Also,” she said, raising a finger to cut off the protests that were fighting past Q’s lips, “how _dare_ you imply that I would ever commit suicide for any man.”  
“Eve--”  
“No. Let me finish. I am used to being objectified by the agents. I am used to M’s veiled misogyny. I never thought you would sink so low, and I should smash your head in for it.” Q feared for his life until she quirked a smile. “You really love him, don’t you?”  
Q felt his cheeks go red.  
“That’s adorable.”  
“I don’t--”  
“You’re blushing.”  
“...I hate biology.”  
She stood and offered him a hand. He took it and she pulled him up; they were halfway down the hall before it occurred to him to question this.  
“Where are we going, Moneypenny?” He kept his tone even, disguising the raw fear in his chest.  
“He wants to see you.”  
“He here referring to…”  
“Bond.”  
It took ten minutes and two hard slaps to the face to revive Q from the ensuing faint.

They were still arguing when Eve parked him in front of one of the conference rooms and knocked.  
“I won’t go in.”  
“You will. You broke his nose, you at least owe him--”  
“Absolutely nothing. He grabbed me.”  
“You pulled a gun.”  
“He should know better than to creep up on--”  
“On mild-mannered desk agents?”  
“I am not mild mannered!”  
Eve glared at him until he wilted.  
“I would like to wash my hair first.”  
“It’s his blood, he’s hardly going to care.”  
“ _I_ care.”  
“So don’t punch him next time.”  
The door opened.  
Q looked at the ceiling, and then at the floor, anywhere but those startling blue eyes and the chest and the cheekbones and really _everything_. Eve’s hand had settled on his shoulder; it was grounding, but only in the sense that a single tether is grounding to a hot-air balloon. Q registered a change in pressure as a second hand landed on top of the first.  
“Moneypenny.” The word was curt and clipped and sent a shiver up Q’s spine. Eve’s hand slipped out from under the larger one, leaving a point of contact that sparked against Q’s arm, and then she was gone.  
Q shrugged Bond’s hand off. “I do apologize about the nose.”  
“I’ve had worse.” _Don’t look,_ Q told himself. _Do not look at those eyes dancing or the upturned lip that’s teasing you. Do not react to the implication that you could not damage him, that you are a child, that you are useless. Do not, under any circumstances, flirt._  
This was in fact easy, as the lion in Q’s abdomen had grabbed hold of Q’s tongue and was devouring it along with a side of courage.  
“I got the flash drive.”  
Excellent. Something to be angry about.  
“Did you find what you needed?”  
“No.” Q could hear the furrow of Bond’s brow in his tone. “I was wondering if you might help me, in fact.”  
Q watched as Bond’s feet shuffled sideways, allowing a Q-sized space through the doorway.  
“I have a Walther to fix, Bond, unless you’re planning on going unarmed for the foreseeable future.”  
His excuse made, Q took off down the hall. It was early, but he’d put in more than enough time for the week, and his laptop understood his problems better than anyone else, and, as a bonus, didn’t make his heart flutter.


	5. Chapter 5

Q could not avoid work all week, nor did he intend to. One must keep up appearances. By sheer force of will, he did not drink, went to bed early, and managed to arrive at work clean and ironed, the blood scrubbed out of his hair, at 8am sharp. Eve was waiting for him beside the door to Q Branch. He brushed past her and made for his work station. As he went, he took the time to chastise several junior agents for existing. It was, by all appearances, a rather wonderful morning.  
Until Bond walked in.  
Q’s minions went berserk. One dived under his desk, five took out their guns, and a forward-thinking young woman near the door punched the security extension into her phone.  
Q kept typing. He had been trained in steadiness by Peeresses of society, women who bore tragedy with a smile and a well-orchestrated tea party. Love was nothing.  
James Bond approached the desk.  
Q reminded himself to breathe.  
“I need my gun.” The voice was single-malt whiskey, aged to perfection in a Scottish cellar. Q did not drink whiskey.  
“Rather presumptuous. Perhaps I haven’t gotten to it.”  
“Then give me yours.” The edge in it was a vintage straight razor. Q used an electric.  
Q made a show of fishing in his desk drawer and slapped Bond’s gun on the table with a sigh. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the light in the barrel flash green as Bond picked it up.  
“Is that all?”  
Bond tucked the gun into his waistband; Q flinched. One of these days, he was going to shoot something off. “No,” he said.  
“I already told you, double-oh-seven, I can’t get you a prostitute.”  
“I don’t want a prostitute.”  
Q risked a glance upward and a raised eyebrow and regretted it; Bond was leering at him.  
“Bond…” his voice changed tenor and pitch halfway up his vocal cords, emerging small and shaking rather than authoritative.  
“The information you gave me was incomplete.”  
“The information?”  
“The emails.”  
“I copied everything. I checked twice, like Santa Claus. You have it all.”  
“No.”  
“There’s no point being stubborn. I do actually know what I’m doing, hard as that is for you to believe.”  
Q did not notice that Bond had a hand behind his back until he brought it forward and waved the papers in it in front of Q’s face. “No,” reiterated Bond. Q’s stomach dropped out.  
“Printing off your own emails is not going to prove that I am anything less than a genius.”  
Bond grinned. The papers stilled. Q’s eyes caught the first line of the topmost email, and he pitched backwards, the world fading away just as his skull hit the floor.

Q woke to the sound of his own emails being read aloud.  
“It’s the stubble that really does it, you know. I would give a year’s salary to take your place that night in Macau.” Bond’s voice jumped an octave. “Well, if you weren’t such a coward about flying, you could have given him a shave yourself.” Q remained silent and still, his eyes squeezed shut, but Bond seemed to have some kind of sixth sense, because he paused in his reading. “I think I missed a spot this morning, if you want to give it a try.”  
Q nearly stopped breathing.  
There was a rustle of paper and the sound of approaching feet, and then there was breath on his cheek. Q clung to control, his heart staccato but his body still and his face impassive.  
Bond ran his fingers through Q’s hair. “All washed and styled. I take it the blood wasn’t such a problem after all?”  
It was a testament to Q’s restraint that he commented on a detail of Bond’s appearance that had been annoying rather than titillating him.  
“You’ve neglected your nose,” he whispered.  
“How can you tell, with your eyes shut?”  
“No doubt this will devastate your super-spy ego, but the lack of brace or internal padding was evident when you came into my office to harass me.”  
“I don’t believe in packing my orifices with cotton. Now, back to the point…”  
“You don’t believe in medicine?”  
Q was determined to stick to his duties of confirming the status of the field agents and scolding any with penchant for self-injury. As long as he kept it professional, his world could not fall apart.  
“I don’t believe in compromising my operational capacity in favor of aesthetics.”  
Q snorted. “Your idiocy continues to astound, Bond.”  
“Yes, and you _like_ it.”  
Q knew the pattern of this exchange from his school days. At the age of twelve, stars in his eyes, he gangled towards a girl in the third form and informed her she was a sycophant and stopped himself just short of pulling her pigtails. Several giggling friends and one italicized accusation later, she concluded the discussion by informing Q that she did not date poofs. The school yard sting loomed large in Q’s mind as Bond commenced stroking his hair once again.  
“Don’t be a child, double-oh-seven.”  
“Says the man who keeps spot cream in his desk drawer.”  
Q opened his eyes and sat up to make a sharp retort. Bond stood to loom over him and Q’s gaze fell on Bond’s face. The Titanic of Q’s rational mind hit Bond’s iceberg eyes and began taking on water. His clever comment was lost to a drowning man’s stutter.  
The corner of Bond’s mouth quirked upwards. “Problems, Q?”  
Q drew in a shaking breath. “Don’t,” he gasped, his lungs burning with the struggle to stay afloat.  
“Why not, Q?”

Because I cannot face this.

Because this is not a joke.

Because I listen to you make love to a different woman every night and it’s already too much.

Q opened his mouth and shut it again, because he could not face it and it was not a joke and it was already too much and because James Bond reduced him to a quivering mess.  
“Q,” said Bond, and was that a note of urgency, or just wishful thinking? “Don’t be stupid.” He stepped closer, so that his legs brushed up against Q’s trembling knees.  
Q swallowed.  
And then Eve walked into the room. “Bond,” she said, her voice laced with steel, “get out.”  
For possibly the first time in his entire life, James Bond obeyed an order without question. When the door clicked shut behind him, the air rushed back into the room, and Q found the water clearing from his head and chest.  
“Can I sit?”  
Q took in his surroundings. He was sitting on a brown leather couch. To his far right was a mahogany desk with sleek, ergonomic chairs on either side. The desk was bare except for a laptop, a pencil cup, and three pieces of paper.  
“This is M’s office,” he said.  
“Where did you think you were?” The voice issued from beside him. Q was alarmed that he missed Eve’s transition to the couch. He shook himself.  
“I hadn’t noticed.”  
“Oh, Q.” Her voice was soft. It felt like a violation of their personal contract. “You’re shaking.” She took his hands in hers and held them still. The shaking migrated up his arms and settled in his core.  
“We’re not friends,” he reminded her.  
“No. We’re two tigers who have to share hunting grounds. This is self interest. If they smell the fear on you, it’s only so long until the smell it on me.”  
“But it’s not peace?”  
“When in your life has there been peace?”  
Q allowed her to pull him into her chest and hold him tight until the trembling stopped. She started to stroke his hair back, but stopped when Q flinched away.  
“I picked his pocket,” She said. Q pulled away from her and raised an eyebrow. “Here, hang on…”  
She dug two small objects out of the pocket of her slacks and held them out for Q to examine. In her hand sat a radio communicator and a familiar trigger guard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry. Patience is a virtue.
> 
> Also, I'm not a doctor. I'm not even a med student. I use mayo clinic online. Do not stuff cotton balls, tampons, etc. up your nose if you break it. I promise, this does not work. Not even sterile gauze. You will mess up. Your nose will be crooked.


	6. Chapter 6

“I am going to kill him,” said Q. The radio transmitter and trigger guard still sat in Moneypenny’s hand, but only because she had snatched them back when Q tried to throw them across the room. He knew that he shouldn’t ruin his own tech, not with all the grief he gave his agents about it, but smashing something was his only possible recourse if he did not want to end up covered in Bond’s blood, slogging through the grim part of London with a bag of body parts at 2am.  
“Really?” Eve’s tone was flat and unimpressed.  
“Really, actually, and painfully.” Q leveraged himself off the couch, crossed to M’s desk, and began hunting through the drawers. “That _bastard_. He does this just to fuck with me, Eve.”  
“Well, fucking is definitely the goal.”  
“What--? No, shut up.” Jammed into the corner of the topmost drawer behind 23 bottles of white out was a pad of Post-It notes. Q pulled a pen out of his pocket and began scribbling. “I realise you were absent for the better part of my interaction with Bond just now, but let me assure you he holds no interest in my… little problem beyond its potential entertainment value.” Q stuck the completed note to the top of M’s laptop. Moneypenny stood and walked around the desk to read it.

_M,_  
 _Circumstances dictate that I kill 007. I hope this is not too great an inconvenience._  
 _Wishing you well,_  
 _Q_

“You can’t actually kill him,” she said.  
“I am aware that you suffer under the delusion that I am fragile and incompetent. Believe me, I know how to use my own guns.”  
“No, I mean you cannot kill James Bond. You cannot put this country at risk.”  
“We have other agents,” Q insisted.  
“We need him.”  
“He’s a sociopath!”  
“And you love him.”  
“Shut up!” Q slammed his hand down on the desk. The heel of his hand and his fingers burned, and the shockwaves traveled through locked elbow and sent sensation lancing up into his jaw. Q finally understood the motivation driving his former roommate, who wore long sleeves even in the summer. This pain was tangible and understandable. Despite everything in his head screaming for him to stop, he clung to the side of the desk with one hand to steady his spinning head and slammed his other hand down again and again, until Eve lunged for his wrist and pulled it behind his back.  
Q was not suicidal, nor was he self-mutilating. He did not love James Bond as deeply as wives love their husbands, or with the desperation and idealism of a sixteen-year-old girl in love her first boyfriend, or with the ferocity with which parents love their children. But the awful truth was that he did love him. He loved him enough for exquisite pain, if nothing else, enough that the shard in Q’s chest finally pushed through the wall of his heart.  
Q did not want to feel it. He was not a feeler by nature. He was a creature driven by intellect rather than pain and fear and hormones; he survived through compartmentalization. James Bond and the pain he caused defied compartments. Nevertheless, Q recognized this as a turning point. Unhealthy coping techniques were not a sign of weakness, but rather a sign that something needed to change. It was time to adjust the narrative.  
“I’m sorry,” he said.  
Eve released his wrist, but did not move away. Breathing hard, he sank down into M’s chair.  
“How are you getting home?”  
“I was going to drive.”  
She sighed through her nose. “Meet me at my car at five fifteen.” She cuffed him on the back on the head when he started to protest. “You’re not going home alone tonight.”  
“I hardly need to be mothered, Moneypenny. I promise not to do anything stupid.”  
“You’ve already done something stupid.”  
He tilted his head in acknowledgement. “five fifteen.”  
Eve handed him the radio and the trigger guard. Q slipped them into his pocket.  
She took the seat opposite him. “You need to deal with this, Q.”  
He nodded. “I know.”  
Eve stayed with Q until the tension ebbed out of his shoulders and he loosened his white-knuckled grip on the edge of the desk. He cleared his throat, and she left the room without looking at him.  
Q pulled the radio transmitter out of his pocket and followed.

Q read Harry Potter while he was at Cambridge and struggling with the existential depression that so often takes root in the minds of geniuses. He retained very little, but the image of a dementor lodged itself in his brain next to the sucking “why,” and Q latched onto it as a lifeline. It was language and context applied to his struggle, and with the light of understanding came the balm of Remus Lupin’s advice: counter fear and bitterness with joy. Wounds heal better when they are treated with sweetness.  
Q broke a piece of chocolate from the bar in his pocket and let it melt on his tongue. Bond was on the other side of the door; enticed by the prospect of another fight between agent and Quartermaster, Tanner pointed Q in the right direction. Double-oh-seven was lifting weights. Q hoped that he was fully clothed.  
Q rested his head on the cool metal door that lead into the gym, swallowed his chocolate, and pushed inside.  
Bond was on the bench press. He was not wearing a shirt. Q failed to look away from Bond’s biceps while he finished his set. After five more lifts, each of them defining the sharp lines of his musculature, Bond settled the bar back into its rest and sat up. “Q.”  
Q tore his eyes away from their new home on Bond’s pectorals and found a spot two inches above his head, to which he fixed his gaze. That done, he strode across the room and tossed the radio to Bond. “When I ask you to return my equipment in one piece, I mean that you should return it to me. I would be happy to provide you with a map to Q Branch, as I know you’re memory’s going.”  
The other man studied the radio for a moment before holding it out to Q, who stepped forward to retrieve it.  
“It is in one piece, though” said Bond. Q scowled. Bond batted his eyes and turned down the corners of his mouth, a coquettish look somewhere between ‘I did my best’ and ‘make me do better.’ “Will that be all, Quartermaster?” Q made the mistake of glancing at Bond’s face.  
Q’s brilliant plan of action did not include beading sweat. Nowhere in his calculations had he left room for the way it rolled down Bond’s upper lip or stood his hair on end when he ran his fingers through it. The scent of it, salt and musk with no trace of Bond’s usual cologne, was enough to make Q consider giving up his foolish enterprise and begging on his knees. Instead, he turned away, one foot toward the door, one foot planted, convinced, ready to plead. He had almost managed to drag it along when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a smile playing on Bond’s lips.  
Pain flared through his chest and radiated outwards. His mouth cracked open and the words danced over his aching teeth before he could swallow them again.  
“I am not a plaything.”  
The room vibrated like a guitar string tightened too far. Despite the tide crashing through Q and engulfing his surroundings, Bond was still, his face impassive. And Q was angry. Hungry for a reaction, he grasped Bond by the shoulders and shook him; Bond’s expression did not change, but in the space of a breath he stood and seized Q’s elbows, immobilizing his arms. His eyes were flint-grey and dangerous, but Q still struggled, kicking at Bond’s ankles and shins until Bond swept Q’s feet out from under him, turned a neat 180, and pinned Q to the bench. They stared at each other, and Q spat in his face.  
Bond leaned down and kissed him.  
Q froze. Bond was kissing him. It was not a ravaging kiss; it was almost chaste, closed lips soft against his own. The violence of the previous moment was gone, and everything was Bond’s warm hand on Q’s chest and his smell in Q’s nostrils and his mouth tender against Q’s, and then the mouth was gone and the light in Q’s stomach went out like a candle.  
Q managed to pry his eyes open. He gave a startled yelp; Bond’s face was hovering several inches above him. Bond grinned, then squinted. Q became immediately self conscious of his complexion and tried to remember whether he had any spots or not, but before he could complete his mental inventory of his imperfections, Bond reached down and took off Q’s glasses.  
“Much better,” he murmured. “You know, this will be nicer for both of us if you kiss back.”  
He set Q’s glasses on the floor a little ways away, straightened up, and offered Q a hand. When Q did not take it, he sighed, gripped Q’s crossed forearms, and pulled him up. When he went in for a second kiss, Q bit him.  
“Cheeky little shit!” Bond laughed, and leaned in again, unperturbed.  
“Bond.” Q put the menace of ten year’s worth of weapons designs into his voice. “Stop.”  
“I don’t want to.”  
“I’m not playing this game.”  
Bond groaned. “Yes. I got that bit. Not a plaything. If you’d bloody well let me kiss you, we could get past that.”  
Q pushed Bond away, and the agent backed off a few feet. “That’s precisely the point. I will not be another one of your-- Hang on. You moved.”  
“Has anyone told you that you should go in for a career in espionage? Your powers of observation are stunning.”  
“Hush. Why did you move?”  
“Because you pushed.”  
“Yes, I realise I did that, but…” Q stared at him. “All these months of breaking my equipment, and you respect _this_?”  
“I didn’t want to sleep with your equipment.” Q made a face. “I would love to explain, Q, but I have several things I would like to do first.”  
“Is buggering off one of them?”  
“Are you being coy?”  
The rage that was ushered out by surprise when Bond kissed him made a spectacular re-appearance. Q flushed red. His hands clenched at his sides.  
“No, Bond, because, funnily enough, I am not one of your flavors of the month. Week. However long it takes for them to get shot once they sleep with you. I don’t do coy. And you don’t do relationships of any kind.”  
Bond rubbed a hand across his face. This stoked the fuel of Q’s rage further, but he was too tired to get angry. The whole week with its endless string of bullshit had taken a lot out of him. Q thought he might try sneaking off to drink the whole incident away, but just as he started to move towards the door again, Bond spoke.  
“No. You’re not. You’re Caledonian Cream.”  
“Pardon?” Q itched to go, but was trapped by the freshly unfurling riddle.  
“You are Caledonian Cream.” When Q continued to stare blankly, Bond went on. “I eat ice cream, Q, in what many, including the staff psychologist, have called a serial and unhealthy fashion. I like it smooth, and with nuts, in both chocolate and vanilla, and sometimes with a splash of bourbon. But at the end of the day, even if I've had as much ice cream as I can eat, I like to come home to a dish of Caledonian Cream.”  
Q’s intestines twisted. Bond wanted to come home to…?  
“That orange dessert?”  
“Mmmm. With a glass of scotch and a nice dinner. Preferably naked.” Bond moved in closer. Q found he did not particularly mind it. He searched for his voice so he could test the waters with one last quip.  
“I hate to break it to you, Bond, but discussing the state of dress of your dessert may be a sign of senility.” Bond radiated heat. Q thought he could see, through the blur of his unaided vision, a fine growth of blonde stubble on his cheeks.  
Bond rumbled something about attitude deserving of punishment. The way the word punishment rolled off his tongue made heat pool in Q’s abdomen, and breathed the light back to life.  
“Bond,” he said, his voice wavering.  
“James.”  
“Talking to your dessert isn’t much better.”  
Q went an entire hour without making another smart remark; James kept his tongue otherwise occupied.

Mallory handed Eve a stack of hundred-pound notes.  
“I still think you should take a cut for cheating,” he said.  
“Bond came to me for help. It’s not my fault I know how to get Q interested.”  
“You shouldn’t have interfered.”  
Eve rolled her eyes but conceded one of the notes. Mallory tucked it into his pocket. “You have to admit the bit with the radio was good,” she said. “If Bond just handed it back, Q would wonder, but he’d never pursue it.”  
“The emails were good, too.”  
“Hm? Oh, no. I just got him started. The rest was all Bond. And Q, of course.”  
“They’re not as dumb as they look. I suppose we’ll have to let HR know.”  
Moneypenny settled further back into her chair and flipped lazily through the stack of notes. “I think they have enough to worry about, don’t you?”  
Mallory’s hand paused halfway to his phone. No sense in causing more trouble with Bond, or putting Q off whatever it was he and 007 were doing and risking another dip in performance.  
“Let the boys have fun,” said Moneypenny.  
Downstairs, Q adjusted his glasses, slapped James Bond on the ass, and returned to his duties as Quartermaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank fuck for Eve.


End file.
